What do I say?

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Something impossible has happened: I have made a friend. Yay. And not one of those fake friends who are really horrible then eventually become a deadly enemy either...

But I'm afraid I'm going to lose my friend. It's been many days of talking, but now I have nothing else to say. All I can do is stare at the MSN chat window... I've looked all over the internet for tutorials on conversation but nothing is there. It's not fair. For once in my life I've actually felt happy these last few days, but if I don't speak then I know I'm going to be all alone again.

Help me. Please!

Well, if you honestly have absolutely nothing to say, I guess you could always go for the simple conversation basis of asking what he's doing, then tell him what you're doing. If he brings up something interesting you can keep going from there, or maybe he'll have an interest in whatever you happened to be doing.

I don't suppose you could prompt him for a question? Or would that only create friction?

<awkward silence>

On-line this is not usually my problem...my problem is shutting up, but in 3D life its a real issue because I get overwhelmed with negative internal dialogue and have a hard time hearing what they are saying...lose my place in the conversation,or try and edit everything I think because ...what if I say the wrong thing....The best advice I was ever given about this was.....People always like to talk about themselves so just ask questions about them and they will take it from there...WARNING>>This does not always work.some people answer questions with one word or one sentence and then the balls back in your court, but it has helped me a few times...one problem I have is remembering what they talked about last time to ask them questions about that.."So...how did you do on that spelling test?"..and as lame as it sounds...if you are conversing with them on line
you can keep a piece of paper and jot down a few reminders about things they are going to be doing so you can ask them about it next time you chat...I feel dumb doing this but it actually helps.

Makes me glad I'm so litteral minded.

You can start doing more things offline. After a few days you might have plenty of stuff to talk about with him. It's refreshing. If you keep on searching for a topic to talk about you might make yourself wanting too much. If I want something to happen too much, it never happens.

You don't have to speak to eachother. I have phoneconversations with a friend of mine, and those 'awkward silences' are actually quite nice. We may have nothing to talk about, but it's nice to know there's someone at the other end. In MSN, you can always send eachother smileys.

If you want to talk about something, go see a movie first. During the movie you usually shut up anyways, and after the movie, you can discuss the movie.

Thanks, I'll try some of these things out...